Welcome to the World's First Great Big Vegetable Challenge! Six years ago we went on a vegetable journey of a lifetime. A 7 year year old boy named Freddie and his mother faced up to the challenge of turning him from a Vegetable-Phobic into a boy who will eat and even enjoy some of life's leafier pleasures. We ate through the alphabet of vegetables...and returned to tell the tale. Join our Great Big Veg Challenge!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The Great Big Christmas Veg Challenge

On Christmas Eve we have a tradition that started five years ago. We make twelve fish dishes, light lots of candles and wade manfully through everything from Cromer crab to squid. The whole feast is served on special fish plates which come out once a year. To be honest it's not so much a meal and more an aquarium. But Freddie and Alex look forward to it and family traditions have a habit of persisting, however bizarre. The challenge this year was to encorporate our latest obsession (the great big vegetable challenge) with the fish - which is where filo pastry came in handy. Butternut squash, the veg of the moment, was roasted using instructions posted on the blog and then scooped out. I put a dollop of this, a couple of prawns and a small chunk of mozarella inside a small parcel of filo pastry and baked it in the oven. Freddie rose to the challenge and enjoyed it. Butternut squash has a buttery taste which appeals to him. We also made soup with the rest of the squash. Another success. The butternut squash risotto which we made earlier this week was less popular. But two out of three isn't bad. So that was our Christmas Eve Great Big Vegetable Challenge. Happy Christmas to all of you from Freddie and me!